Palm TX Reset Fix

I was having a problem with my Palm TX resetting every time I tried to sync the Datebook/Calendar information. I ended up downloading Pimlico Software's DateBk6 and installing a file called dbscan.prc which is in the AdvancedStuff.zip file. I ran the program and followed these steps:

1. Choose "Other" from the opening screen
2. Pull down the menu and choose "Remove All Deleted Records"
3. Push the "PalmOne" button

Apparently there were three deleted records in the Datebook/Calendar database. Now that those are gone, I can sync my PDA via pilot-link and JPilot once again.

I Hate It When That Happens

It's a bad idea to run rm -rf on your /media directory when you've got your USB drive mounted there. You'd think I'd know better than that. You'd be wrong. Thankfully there was nothing of massive importance on there.

Slackware and KDE's Font Installer

I don't know why this never gets fixed, but for the past several Slackware releases, fonts that you install via KDE's font installer won't show up anywhere. The trick is to add this directory to your /etc/fonts/fonts.conf file under the section marked Font directory list:

/usr/local/share/fonts

I may have to talk with the powers-what-is about that.

Slackware 12.2

Pat and the guys released Slackware 12.2 on the 10th. I downloaded the DVD iso. Unfortunately my other computer won't read DVDs burned by this one, so I have to get the three install CDs too. Thank heavens for broadband. For kicks I decided to upgrade my kids' computer yesterday. Everything went so smoothly that I decided to go ahead and do it on my main box too. I'm just tying up some loose ends right now. So far it seems very slick. Unlike 12.1, the kernel that comes with 12.2 doesn't barf on my DVD drive.

IMD Final Lick

I began work on the final lick to the "In My Dreams" solo tonight. It's a hyper-fast descending lick. Right now I can't even play the notes in the right order, to say nothing of playing them quickly. That time will come, but I can already tell that this will be the hardest part of the solo by far. OK, maybe when I try to learn to do the tapping part with only one hand, that will be harder but there's a way around that. There's no way around the last lick other than serious woodshedding.

IMD Update

Even though I haven't been posting, that doesn't mean that I haven't been practicing. As a matter of fact, I still haven't missed a day. I can feel my speed and accuracy increasing. Those are all good things. Today all of the sudden I could play the tapping part in the solo at almost full speed. I was somewhat shocked, actually. On Monday I'm going to start learning the final lick which is going to be very interesting indeed. I thought I was crazy to say I would one day know the solo to In My Dreams but that is looking more and more likely with each passing day.

Minor Breakthrough

As of today, I can basically play the first half of the In My Dreams solo at 100 bps. It's a bit sloppy, especially at the end, but it's a definite improvement. I think I've got that little hammer on-pull off lick in muscle memory now so I can work on building up speed without having to stop to think, "OK, let's see--I hammer on 10 now right?" I listened to the first part at full speed, 120 bps, and while I can't really do that yet it definitely seems within my reach.

The neat thing about this solo is that it has just about every major guitar technique in it. There are hammer/pull runs, harmonics, lots of bends, slides, some blazingly fast runs, and some more deliberate bits. I've always considered it to be a classic and now that I'm really digging into it, I'm realizing that that is more true that I originally imagined.

I also seem to be falling in love with my Fender Showmaster Celtic H again. It's just a really nice guitar. I don't want to put it down.

A Week's Worth of Effort

It might not sound like much to stick to a goal for a full week, but with me and guitar that's major thing. Usually by this time my boredom circuits would have kicked in and I'd be looking for something else to do. That's why I chose the solo to "In My Dreams." I like it so I figured I'd be more likely to stick with it. So far that seems to be true. At this point I have all of the notes for the first half of the solo under my fingers. A little better timing and some more speed (especially towards the end of the first half) will do the trick. Now that I think about it, that's not back for a week's work. Of course the second half of the solo has all of the really tough stuff.

Once I get the whole thing down except for speed, I think I'll record is at various speeds until I reach full speed. Maybe start out REALLY slow and go up in about 10 bps intervals until I hit 120. I guess I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

Another Day, Another . . . Something

I began work on that second lick today. Wasted a lot of time trying to figure out the hammer/pull lick right before the main tapping lick. All I managed to accomplish today on that is get the notes in the right order. The syncopation is way off right now. I'll have at it again tomorrow.

On a positive note, I can definitely tell that my callouses are building up nicely and my picking continues to improve. I'm reaching the point where major breakthroughs will be few and far between. Improvement will be measured in small bits. The good news is that the daily practice promise continued.

Time Isn't on My Side

Today is one of those days that make keeping a guitar goal hard. I had meetings pretty much constantly from 11 this morning until 9 tonight. After the last one was done, I just wanted to grab a beer and watch hockey, not run through dexterity exercises on my guitar. I know that if I just skip today, today becomes two days then three and so on. It's like any exercise; you need to keep at it to see any improvement.

So I just told myself I was going to play. I can definitely see improved speed and accuracy in my drills. I played through the parts of the solo I know already. It wasn't as clean as I'd like, but it was better than yesterday. I can already see how my fingering and picking techniques are improving--partially because they need a lot of improvement. I'm cutting down on wasted motion and choking up on the pick more.

Tomorrow I want to start working on the next lick. It's not that I think I've got the first one nailed, it's just that I need something new so I don't mindlessly go through the same thing day after day. It's hard to keep that delicate balance between challenging yourself and overwhelming yourself.

First Several Day's Progress

Here's several quotes I put up on TheFret.net about how I've been sticking to my plan to learn the "In My Dreams" solo.

From December 8

Well, I kept to my word today: two days in a row--whee! Anyway, I got the second lick under my fingers finally. What I mean by that is that I've got the notes and the timing. I just have to build up a bit of speed. I had to listen to one part over and over because I just wasn't getting the cadence right. I also worked on the tapping a bit. I don't think it will be hard to get that part up to speed two-handed. I don't even want to think about it one-handed.

From December 9

FWIW, the dexterity exercises I've been doing are pretty simple, but seem rather effective. I do one that I got from Metal Method called "02132432" That's the fret order when you start. After that you go to "03243543" and so on up the neck. It's easier to do than to describe.

Another is going 1234, 2345, etc., alternating between the E and A strings and then the reverse on the way back down the neck.

Another is sliding up and down one string like this: 1234 5432 3456 7654, etc. Once again, easier to do than to write.

I like playing these while watching T.V. or some clip on YouTube since they are pretty mindless. The key is playing them cleanly. As dopey as these are, they do seem to help.

*Update* Give it up for day three! Anyway, I have the first lick down pat (I consider the first lick to by 2:09-2:16 of the official video. I can play it cleanly at 100 bps and pretty decently at 120 bps (aka full speed). I know seven seconds doesn't sound like much, but it's seven more seconds than I knew before! And since the solo is 30 seconds long, I suppose I'm almost 1/4 way there! Of course, the hard stuff hasn't started yet.

Audacity has been a big help. I took the pitch-corrected version of the solo and hacked that first lick off and slowed it to approximately 100 bps (technically it was 99.6 if you want to be pedantic). I looped it over and over in Amarok (my media player) until I nailed it. Very handy tool--and you can't beat free.

And now an update from yesterday, December 10, not posted to TheFret:

My fingers decided to get stupid on my last night. I struggled with the dexterity exercises. The stuff that I could play cleanly the day before, I couldn't. Two steps forward, one step back, I suppose. Nevertheless, I pressed on and stuck with it. This is will be a big test of my sticktuitiveness.

"In My Dreams" Solo Project

Hello, is this thing on?

I thought it was high time that I actually do something with my guitars rather than just doing something to them. That was the inspiration for this post on TheFret.Net which is reproduced below. Rather than clog up that forum with regular updates on my progress, this blog fits the need perfectly.

-----

Well, I feel that basically I've been in a rut in my playing for a long time, so I decided that I needed to set a goal. I wanted to learn a more serious solo, but the problem is that unless I really like the song I have a hard time finding the motivation to sit down and learn it. Since I always wanted to play George Lynch's solo in Dokken's "In My Dreams" (and I consider it one of the finest solos of the 80s), I set that as my goal. I'm typing this so that I can be ridiculed and shamed should I fail.

In order to reach the goal I have done the following:

1. I broke the solo down into a series of licks, saved as separate MP3s.


2. I slowed the licks down 40% in Audacity and corrected the pitch to make it closer to 440 (The song is almost tuned down 1/2 step on the CD, although they play it in standard tuning live. I assume this was some twiddling done in the studio.)


3. I've already got a backing track and the tab from an old guitar magazine.


4. I decided I will play the fast tapping part with two hands instead of one like George does it. When I get the whole thing to speed, I'll start working on doing it one-handed.

In order to reach the goal I will do the following:

1. I will practice some part of the solo every day. I'm going to work through it sequentially since the hardest stuff comes toward the end.


2. I have several dexterity exercises that I will also practice every day to help get my chops up to snuff.


3. I will work on my bending so that the whole step bends in the solo, of which there are several, will be whole step bends and not 0.9 step or 1.1 step bends.


4. Every pinch harmonic, of which there are several, will scream like Mariah Carey caught in a bear trap. For me that is one of the distinguishing characteristics of Lynch's style.

After I reach the goal I will do the following:

1. I will record myself playing all guitar and bass parts using the backing track I already have.


2. I will reward myself in some small way for the accomplishment. I'm thinking something along the lines of getting a good fuzz pedal or maybe a ZYS. As a matter of fact, I will buy no gear other than possibly strings (although I've got some spare sets already) or picks until I reach this goal.


3. I will commence working on my next goal: the "Crazy Train" solo.

It is my goal to have the solo learned by February 10.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the song, here's the video from YouTube.

BFG, Take #3

Well, I think I got a bad card back from BFG. Neverwinter Nights would lock up and red bands would appear across the screen. Usually I could kill X with ctrl-alt-backspace, but this time I had to reset. When I did all I got was a grid of white blocks. So I RMA'd it again. This time they sent me a better card, a 6600 OC with 256M. So far this one works great, although I'm glad I also upgraded my PSU to a better one. Thus far, this card seems to be doing everything well.

Oh yeah, they sent me another T-shirt too. Soon I'm going to have the largest privately-held collection of BFG-ware :)

Slackware 12.1

You'd think I'd know better by now. Slackware 12.1 came out and I decided to upgrade my main box with it. There's just one problem. The 2.6.24.5 kernel that comes with it doesn't like my DVD drive. Unfortunately I didn't watch when the DVD was booting so I didn't notice until I had dusted my root partition. I got to the point where I would install all the packages and it wouldn't find the drive. This isn't Slackware-specific; I've heard of people having similar problems with Ubuntu and other distros with that kernel. It may be something specific with Benq-based drives (which my Sony DRU-810A is).

Long story short, I had to reinstall 12.0 and then do a manual upgrade to 12.1. I got everything working in relatively short order. Unfortunately, there were a couple of other screw-ups that I made along the way which are entirely my own fault. Haste makes waste, they say. Plus for some reason I insist on living on the bleeding edge.

So now I'm running a custom 2.6.25.3 kernel. The main benefit I've seen to 12.1 so far (it's only been a day or two) is that I could install Cedega without having to add a bunch of stuff to Python.

BFG Follow-Up

Well, color me impressed. BFG got a card back to me almost exact 48 hours after I mailed mine out. Note that it is not my original card. I assume that it is a refurbished model or perhaps a new old stock one. Not only that, but they threw in a sweet BFG t-shirt for my troubles. I guess I know which brand video card I'm going to be buying when I build a new system.

BFG Warranty

The fan on my BFG GeForceFX 5700 Ultra has been getting unpredictable. It will run for a while but then stop. The only way I can tell is by monitoring its temperature in the NVIDIA Linux drivers. I couldn't find a suitable replacement heatsink. The comparable cards are either less powerful or require a bigger PSU than I have. I decided to call BFG, since I knew they had a lifetime warranty. I expected flak, but I got none. They issued me an RMA and I UPS'd it to them yesterday. I just got confirmation that it arrived. According to the guy I talked to, there will be a 1-2 day turnaround and then it will be UPS'd back. Pretty cool, especially since it's a four-year-old card. I'm planning on a box upgrade later this year. I guess I know which brand of vid card I'm getting.

Update! I just checked their site and their warranty changed with cards purchased after February 21 of this year. It's still a lifetime warranty, but you need to register the card within 30 days and send a copy of the receipt with any returned cards. That's a little bit more of a hoop to jump through, but not a biggie.

Update #2! Holy crap! I just checked BFG's site and it's already been fixed and is being shipped back to me. I got a UPS tracking number which means that it should be here tomorrow. The card will have been out of my possession for approximately 48 hours. Wow! If it really is fixed that is nothing short of spectacular service.

2.6.25-rc8, Ralink, and wpa_supplicant

Most people know that getting wireless networking working in Linux (especially with native, open-source drivers) is one of the last great hurdles for Linux to overcome. We are doing some moving around in the house. Rather than punch holes in the walls for cat5, I decided to get a wireless card for my kids' computer and see if I could get it set up. I got a Linksys WMP54G v4.1 which uses a Ralink chipset which in turn has open source drivers. Initially, I tried to just compile the rt61 driver and a modified version of wpa_supplicant for WPA support. I just couldn't get it to work.

I read that the Ralink drivers entered the kernel itself with the release of 2.6.24. Unfortunately, the drivers in that kernel version are buggy. I heard that the drivers in the 2.6.25 release candidates were much better. So, I downloaded the 2.6.24 source, patched it to 2.6.25-rc8, did a "make oldconfig" making sure to tell it to compile the Ralink drivers as modules, and let it compile overnight (Celeron 400s don't compile kernels that rapidly). In the morning, I got everything installed. I then compiled and installed wpa_supplicant 0.5.10.

The final hurdle was configuring wpa_supplicant and Slackware 12.0's networking scripts. Here is the bits from /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf:

IFNAME[4]="wlan0"
IPADDR[4]="192.168.1.4"
NETMASK[4]="255.255.255.0"
USE_DHCP[4]="no"
DHCP_HOSTNAME[4]=""
WLAN_ESSID[4]="My SSID"
WLAN_MODE[4]=Managed
WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant"

This configured Slackware to give me a static IP and use wpa_supplicant to take care of WPA encryption. Here is the bits from /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf:

# WPA protected network, supply your own ESSID and WPAPSK here:
network={
scan_ssid=1
ssid="My SSID"
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=CCMP TKIP
group=CCMP TKIP WEP104 WEP40
psk=password
}

I had to add scan_ssid=1 because my router does not broadcast its SSID. That way the network would come up properly on boot. Replace "password" with the output of wpa_passphrase. Obviously in both cases you'd need to enter the actual SSID.

Now everything works great! I can download stuff at my cable connection's maximum speed. I'll need to test it for a while for stability, but so far it seems great. The only other problem I had is that the NVIDIA drivers require a patch to compile with the 2.6.25 release candidates. You can imagine how long it took me to figure that one out.

Linux and Hard Drive Partitioning

I don't know if there could be a topic less sexy than partitioning a hard drive for Linux but it is still very important. He lists a couple of common schemes and then gives some extra suggestions for servers. I personally have separate partitions for /boot, /, /home, and /mp3s. That setup has served me well. If I were running a server, I'd probably add one for /var just in case some logging went haywire. Thanks Linux Today.

Amazon MP3 Downloader and Slackware 12

Amazon finally released the MP3 downloader for Linux which enables Linux users to download full albums from their site. It works out of the box if you use Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, or OpenSUSE. There isn't a stock version for Slackware. So here's what I did:

1. I downloaded the Fedora 8 RPM from the link above
2. I went to SlackBuilds and downloaded, created, and installed SlackBuilds for (in order): libsigc++, glibmm, cairomm, and gtkmm.
3. Then I downloaded and installed boost-1.34.1-i486-2gds.tgz from Linux Packages. Update 12/24/2008 I've found the hard way after I upgraded to Slackware 12.2 that the downloader will not work with a version of Boost > 1.34.1. Just do yourself a favor and use the Slackware 12.0 SlackBuild for Boost. You can thank me later.
4. Finally I went into /usr/lib and created the following symbolic links to make everything work with what the Amazon MP3 Downloader is expecting to find:

ln -s libssl.so.0 libssl.so.6
ln -s libcrypto.so.0 libcrypto.so.6
ln -s libboost_date_time.so libboost_date_time.so.3
ln -s libboost_signals.so libboost_signals.so.3
ln -s libboost_iostreams.so libboost_iostreams.so.3
ln -s libboost_thread-mt.so libboost_thread-mt.so.3

Now it works great! I downloaded and am now enjoying Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Texas Flood." I wish it was a little simpler, but it wasn't too awfully painful. When you use Linux long enough you get pretty good at jumping through hoops.

Welcome to My Olde Blog!

This blog (which I hopefully will update regularly) will contain my thoughts, hints, tips, and tricks on my many and varied hobbies. These include, but are not limited to, Linux, the Playstation 3, guitars, and homebrewing beer. You'll probably find something to entertain or annoy you. Hopefully more the former than the latter.